Dandie Dinmont

You're a bad, bad man Col (£90 quid on Amazon today, must resist...). Craig.

To ask the obvious question, is it bigger on the inside than it is on the outside? It sounds like the opposite of my bank account which always seems to contain less money than I think it should. Craig.

Of course the fatal flaw with my suggestion is that it’s been so long since I actually saw a coin that this didn’t actually help much. But having dug around down the back of our sofa and re-familiarised myself with our coinage, I am now suitably gobsmacked. I hope all this tiny detail isn’t making you so cross-eyed that you start pulling the wrong levers at work! This is going to be a model to remember. Craig.

This is looking incredibly smart Alistair. Might I suggest that you include a small coin or some other means of determining scale in the pictures so that we can be astounded by the smallness of the greeblies? Craig.

Not just the Russians. If I recall correctly, Winkle Brown was quite badly injured doing landing trials in the very aircraft Alistair is modelling. Craig.

Indeed. Compared to things like the Natter and the Manned version of the V1, the Komet looks positively sensible. Craig.

According to Wikipedia (so take this for what you think it's worth) the fuels were T-Stoff and C-Stoff. This is somewhat confirmed by the small 'T' and 'C' you can see just behind the cockpit and near the tail of the colour schemes in Alistair's first post. Apparently the tanks on either side of the cockpit held T-Stoff and a quick google brings up links (none of which I dared click on) to some luckless pilot who was dissolved after a fuel leak. Oh, and if you had the undercarriage lever in the wrong position on touchdown, you were highly likely to break your back. I can well believe that it killed more Germans than Allies. Craig.

I must be a great modeller then This kit was one of, if not the first I tackled on my return to modelling after a 35 year break and, as you've discovered Heather, it served as a salutary introduction to the tighter tolerances of the new Airfix. Nevertheless, I managed to get it all together more or less and was quite pleased with the result until one of our cats used the near-completed model as a landing pad when descending from the top of a wardrobe and scattered its components to the four winds. I've always felt I should go back and have another go at the kit and should that ever happen, I can only hope that it will turn out half as well as this build is going. Looking forward to further progress, Craig.

Thanks for all the kind comments folks, really encourages you to return to the bench and get cracking! As recommended by @Foxbat, I added locating tabs to the fuselage sides: These had a major effect. Whereas before the fuselage sides had gone together well, if a little imprecisely, now they wouldn't go together at all. I had clearly, as so often before, been a little over-enthusiastic with my tabbing efforts. Much paring away and sanding later, the sides were finally re-united and, while the going was good, glued together. The modelling gods were smiling on me and I remembered to include the tailwheel, the panel on the bottom of the fuselage and the cockpit before irrevocably making the final join. It's almost like I know what I'm doing! The final seam wasn't perhaps as clean as I would have liked it, and the fine detailing provided by Eduard, and extending over the spine of the aircraft meant I couldn't take my usual scorched earth approach to disguising said seam but we're getting there. I also glued the wings together. Yes, I did remember to open up the holes for the bomb racks inboard of the undercarriage. One test fit later and we have something beginning to resemble a Hellcat Note also the major parts of the mighty Double Wasp painted Burnt Iron and awaiting further titivation which will in all probability never be seen. The wings aren't glued in place yet but given the force required to locate them, I don't actually know if they'll come off again without tearing the fuselage apart. Finally, in case it may be of interest, two attempts at recreating the R-2800 in 1/72nd scale The left hand one comes from the Tamiya Corsair I'm also building at the moment and the right hand one belongs to this kit. There's not a lot in it but if pushed, I think I would have to say the contender from the Far East is slightly more finely detailed. More progress soon hopefully. Thanks for reading! Craig.

This is looking great Dave! As a rigging novice myself, I'm looking forward to seeing how you tackle the next step. Craig.

Just imagine the courage of the pilots who flew this thing into combat, surrounded by tanks of hideous flesh dissolving chemicals. It really does bigger belief. Strong progress as ever Alistair. Craig.

You weren’t joking about the fiddly bits! You’re clearly going to need steady hands and the eyes of a hawk for this one. Great progress so far though. Craig.

Curses, rumbled! I did realise I was on shaky ground when I made those remarks but assumed my charm and loveable nature would let me get away with it. Craig.

Jings, where did the last 6 weeks go? With a build of this glacial pace, it would be madness to start another, and one with a deadline at that. And yet, here we are: Doing some idle research on the subject of the present build invariably leads to an interest in its great Pacific comrade, the Grumman F6F Hellcat. Inevitably you start thinking "Hmm, be nice to build one of these as well", then you notice that a group build is about to start and before you know where you are, you have yet more bits scattered across your workbench. I won't contaminate the STGB with remarks about the Hellcat's great rival but I may make some comparisons between the two types and the two kits here if that's of interest? The Corsair's story is a fascinating one so I'm going to test your patience by waffling on about it for a bit. The Corsair's genesis was in a 1938 requirement from the US Navy for a single engined carrier based fighter equipped with three or four machine guns and offering the maximum possible top speed. Vought came up with a proposal which would use the Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp radial engine, the first airframe designed from the off to use this engine. This mighty engine required an equally mighty propellor to translate its power into thrust which in turn required a mighty amount of ground clearance. To avoid having an undercarriage like a flamingo (feathered, not DeHavilland), the decision was taken to use an inverted gull wing on the new fighter. This had the added advantage of allowing an exceptionally clean join between wing and fuselage (and, as we will see later contributed to the solution of one of its greatest failings as a carrier based aircraft) though this was offset somewhat by the heavier structure this type of wing required. The new aircraft first flew in 1940 and had soon broken the 400MPH barrier, an impressive achievement. Less impressive was the view ahead from the pilot's seat which was obscured by an impressively long nose. Aspects of its handling also gave cause for concern. During its development, reports from the war in Europe indicated that the proposed armament was going to be inadequate for a modern war and the decision was taken to upgun the new aircraft to have 6 50 cal machine guns, three in each wing. The new location for these guns had previously contained fuel tanks. To meet the navy's range requirements, that fuel had to go somewhere and the only possible place was in the fuselage, close to the centre of gravity, and the current location of the cockpit. To make room, the cockpit had to be moved towards the tail making the view over the nose even worse! Development of the new aircraft was protracted, and when the time came for the newly named Corsair to undergo its deck landing trials, several issues emerged which made touching down on a carrier deck a very tricky prospect for the average pilot fresh out of training. Luckily for the US Navy, Grumman had developed their own Double Wasp powered fighter, the F6F Hellcat in parallel with the Corsair and this was also ready to go to sea. In comparison to its rival, the Hellcat had had a relatively trouble-free gestation, and made carrier landings about as easy as that immensely testing endeavor was likely to get and so the Admirals decided that they would put the Hellcat on their flightdecks, and pass the Corsair on to the Marine Corps who, by and large, didn't operate from carriers, and the Royal Navy who were in dire need of a new carrier borne fighter. It took great force of will to get over the embarrassment of the affair known as ip-decal-gate but I managed it in the end and got back to work. The cockpit is a real jewel of an assembly accurately reflecting the lack of a cockpit floor and containing a lot of detail in its 8 or so parts. Regular readers will be relieved to hear that in the finest traditions of my builds, I managed to remove the spindly control column assembly from its spue attachments intact, but then broke it while affixing it in the cockpit. The kit came with a decal to represent the seat harness. I thought this might look a little two dimensional so decided to stick the decal to a masking tape/tin foil/masking tape sandwich to produce something that had a bit more depth to it and could be positioned easily. The results of this bright idea were...uninspiring... making me glad this this kit doesn't come with an open canopy options It was definitely worth tracking down that ip decal. I could never have produced anything like that. Next the completed cockpit was glued into one fuselage side Once this has all set, we will see if the fuselage goes together as well as Tamiya's reputation suggests that it should. You will note that I have painted the interior of the tailwheel bay (and the undercarriage bays) Yellow Zinc Chromate. This is in spite of my believe that at this stage in the war, practically everything on these aircraft, including the interior bays should be painted ANA623 gloss sea blue (if this isn't the case, now would be a great time to tell me). I thought I might be able to do some light chipping and weathering in these areas and expose the underlying primer. Or not, we shall see. One last thing, I am impressed by the Tamiya moulding techniques which can produce something like this Pretty good, I think for a kit which, if Scalemates is to be believed, has just celebrated its 21st birthday. I've painted the interior of this Yellow Zinc Chromate as well but I'm not sure about it, I may repaint it black or, as the instructions suggest, interior green. Anyone know for sure what colour it should be? Anyway, enough for now, Hopefully progress will be a little quicker henceforth. Thanks for reading, Craig.

I can’t deny that I’m disappointed and a little let down... Craig

Just had a look at this kit on Hannants (must not add to stash, must not...). Did you bother with all the added detail sets? Put together they seem to cost as much as the kit! Craig.

Complete with a 1/72 Tower Bridge constructed from matchsticks I assume? We will settle for nothing less from you Alistair. Standing by to be impressed once again. Craig.

See, us lesser modellers would only think of starting one build at a time. You’re making us feel inadequate (not that I need much help with that, at least in the field of modelling). You’ll probably be finished them by next Saturday as well. Really looking forward to both of these. Craig.

Ooh yes! The Komet has always been a favourite of mine, not least because of Winkle Brown’s association with it and the kit looks great as well. I’m definitely in the front row for this one! Craig.

Another masterpiece Alistair! What’s next? Craig.

That’s looking rather fine Mark! Good luck with the scribing. Craig.

I think you took a big chance there. Your feline pal looked like he was prepared to send the Hurricane floorwards with one flick of his paw. And that would have been a crying shame for such a fabulous result! Craig.

One thing I did buy on the internet today, intrigued by your signature, was a copy of your book Voyager for my Kindle. I’m about half way through it, have thoroughly enjoyed it so far and, like your Hellcat build, can’t wait to see what happens next! Craig.

Good save on the engine, and those gun compartments are looking great. From a purely selfish viewpoint, I’m grateful that you’ve hit a slight bump in the road. You seemed to be enjoying this build so much that I couldn’t help scanning the internet for a bargain copy, and I don’t have room for the box it comes in let alone the finished article! Apologies, and looking forward to future progress. Craig.

I fear you have missed out the third member of that onomatopoeic trio “Bill” and he may take his revenge next time you have a dodgy pint (usually about the 10th in my experience). Actually “Hurc” is quite descriptive as well. That Ralph camouflage masking gloop (tm) is awful looking stuff but you’ve managed to produce a really nice finished effect with it Alistair. Normally, I am a complete sucker for any new modelling material but I have just had a vivid image of a cat curiously shoving its paw into a tin of the stuff, and the chaos that would ensue, so I think I’ll maybe stick to blu-tac. looking forward to seeing what comes next. Craig.